


The Best Man

by IanMuyrray



Series: Muy's OtherOutlanderTales [6]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Post-World War II, the one that got away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16411334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IanMuyrray/pseuds/IanMuyrray
Summary: Ian and Jenny are separated during WWII. Jenny marries someone else.





	The Best Man

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous said: What if Ian and Jenny were together before he went to fight in France?
> 
>  
> 
> While writing this, I was flexible with time period and gendered expectations, and before I knew it, Jenny and Ian planted themselves in a WW2 AU. Enjoy this one-shot.

Ian sat at one of the round tables near the back of the ballroom. His coffee mug left a light brown ring on a paper napkin adorned in a bold gold font with the words  _Mr. and Mrs. James Fraser, 16th of June, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Seven_. The wedding had been beautiful, his best friend happier and more resplendent than he’d ever seen him, with eyes only for his new wife. Ian had fulfilled his duty as best man; he had supplied whisky when Jamie needed it, straightened his necktie, had even knelt and tied his shoes when Jamie’s hands shook. With the ceremony over, the cake cut, the toasts made, and the first dance over, Ian now had the evening to himself.

The lights were dimmed, a soft orange glow both intimate and obtrusive while a single candle flickered in front of him. When Jamie announced he was getting married, Ian had known he’d be asked to stand up for him. He’d also known Jamie’s wedding meant he would see Jenny.

His eyes immediately found her in the room. He was aware of her at all times, a compass aligned to her pull. She sat with the bride and groom at a faraway table, her head tilted, listening carefully to the conversation over the sound of a buoyant five piece band. Her dark hair was pulled back into a chignon, and he found himself wondering how long it would be if let down, loose upon her shoulders. She threw her head back and laughed at something Jamie said, a small hand giving her brother a light shove. The sound didn’t travel as far as his ears, but he heard it the same, echoing in his head, the rich sound of her laugh, and his chest constricted.

In the quiet between songs, several guests began clinking silverware against the glass flutes of their drinks, rising to a clamor that filled the room, accompanied by hoots and whistles that encouraged the newlyweds to kiss. Jamie turned from Jenny and wrapped his arm around his wife, Claire, pulling her in for an exaggerated and prolonged kiss. The room filled with laughter and applause.

Without thinking, Ian looked to Jenny again and found her staring back. The shock of it made him duck his head and clench his jaw.

He pushed away from the table and made for the curved bar, moving slower than he wanted because of the stiffness in his leg.

“What’ll it be?” The bartender wore a black vest and bowtie, shaking a stainless-steel tumbler. The man deftly poured the strained contents into a glass, garnished it, and passed it off.

Ian began to relax as he scanned the drink options. “Ah, port. Thank you.” He sat on a stool and rested his elbows on the rounded, polished wood of the bar.

He’d loved her once. Had thought she’d loved him, too. He swirled the wine in his glass, inhaling the spiced bouquet, trying – and failing – to not relive that night in the borrowed farm pickup. The night when when he’d held her in his arms and, with all the yearning in his heart, asked her for the one thing he wanted desperately, unable to bear the thought of leaving her. He didn’t want to remember how her mood shifted, how closed off she became, her blue eyes hard and her face steely. He didn’t want to recall how silent that drive home was, how he returned her to Lallybroch well before her curfew – something they’d never done. It had been dark in the cab, the electric light of her parents’ house barely touching them. While the engine whirred, he waited, painfully, for her to explain herself. But she climbed out of the car and slammed the door without saying a word, the image of her white saddle shoes moving across the grass in the darkness his last memory of her.

After returning home from the war, he found out in a letter from Jamie that Jenny married someone else. Ian had offered his congratulations, then quickly boxed up his belongings and boarded a train. He’d moved to London and hadn’t looked back, choosing the bachelor life in a city he hated over a heartsick life in a town he loved.

He polished off the port in his glass with a big gulp and set it down with a thud on the cork coaster, deciding it was best if he left early. As he was about to stand, however, he felt a slender hand on his forearm and froze. The silver wedding band on her finger seemed to mock him.

“Ian,” she said. “It’s so good to see ye.”

Ian removed his arm from her touch as politely as he could, resisting the urge to rub the branded skin. “Jenny,” he said, his voice hoarser than he’d like. “Likewise.”

She stood between him and the empty bar stool next to him, the peach of her satin bridesmaid dress glinting pink and orange depending on how the light hit it. The three-dimensional color accentuated the creaminess of her skin, the rosiness of her cheeks. Her black hair and deep blue eyes a stark contrast to the warm tones of the room.

“How long are ye in town?” she asked.

“Only til tomorrow.”

She scanned him, a small notch appearing between her dark eyebrows. “Can we talk?”

He nodded, and they made their way through the party to a set of French doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking the sloping greens of a golf course. Lanterns softly lit the space and white lights were strung through the shrubbery.

He led Jenny to an iron bench in a more private alcove and gestured for her to sit. He remained standing. She arranged the skirt of her dress across her lap, her hands trembling slightly.

Ian withdrew a cigarette and lit it, taking a drag. It was a habit he had picked up while in the service, and the first draw soothed his nerves, just like he knew it would. Jenny watched him carefully, her eyes catching on the glowing ember end as he held it between his lips.

“Ye’ll know I married,” she said. He hadn’t forgotten how direct she could be.

“Yes.” The word rang with dissonant tones in the silence between them.

“D’ye ken who I married?”

“Aye,” he replied, his voice flat. “Oliver Grant.”

“I married him because he was sick,” she said, launching into a determined explanation.  “Too sick to fight. Did ye ken that?” He did not, but he remained silent, allowing her to speak. “He had lung cancer. Got it in a factory. He was riddled with shame for it, that he couldna fight, especially as the war dragged on and so many families lost their sons and fathers so bravely for a noble cause. My mother, ye ken, had no great relationship with the Grants. But when word got out that their eldest son was dyin,’ I went to them. Oliver and I always got along at school, and I felt sorry for the lad. I brought the Grants stew, and we ate supper together. It was nice. So I would bring them supper once a week. Ollie—Oliver—he was kind to me, and we became fast friends. But he looked bad. Like a skeleton. All frail and… helpless.” She brought her hands together slowly and clasped them on her lap. Ian’s cigarette burned, unused in the hand at his side. “One night, we went for a walk in his family’s garden. We couldna go far—he couldna go far. It was then that he told me he didna have long, not that I hadna guessed already.”

Ian slowly brought the cigarette to his mouth for another draw, shifting weight off of his lame leg, when Jenny said, “He wanted to die havin’ a wife.”

“So ye married him.” Ian flicked ashes to the ground. Oliver Grant. Stripped of a worthwhile life and unable to serve his country. Denied his manhood.

Jenny nodded, fiddling with the wedding band on her finger. “I did.”

“Where is he now?”

“He died,” she said, surprising him, and Ian felt the tension between them snap, no longer pulling at him. “A little less than a year ago.”

“Oh, Janet,” he said, softly. “I’m sorry.”

She gave a one-shouldered shrug, but he saw how a flush crept up her chest and neck. Ian’s hands hung uselessly at his side, and he struggled for something to say beyond that.

“Funny thing is,” she began, though she no longer looked directly at him. She fisted her skirts, then in a restless movement, stood. “Why can ye no’ sit down? Ye make me nervous hoverin’ over me like that.” She moved towards the balcony railing, and he followed, extinguishing his cigarette with the heel of a wingtip shoe.

“Funny thing is,” he prompted, standing alongside her.

She sighed. “Funny thing is, I couldna marry you because… I didna want to be a war widow. Tch. I suppose I’m not.” One eyebrow twitched upwards, as though she wasn’t sure whether she would laugh or cry. “I’m no’ a war widow, but I’m a widow all the same.”

“I might call ye a war widow,” Ian ventured. He understood what Grant had needed, and understood Jenny enough to know that she would care for him in that way. “Would ye have married him if it hadna been for the war?”

“No.” The response was certain. “However… I would have married  _you_  if it hadna been for the war.”  

Ian frowned. “I know that, Janet.”

“Ye do? How can you?” She was defensive, accusatory in her tone.

“Because I know ye. Doesna mean it didna break my heart though.” He tried to be light-hearted in his response to her, to hold at bay the memories of hopelessness and loss he’d experienced in the months on barren battlefields. But he’d told himself he would come home and find Jenny if he survived; that he would marry her.

For a moment, Jenny’s facial expression turned hard, and he saw how much grief and loss weighed on her, too. “I was so young when you proposed. I don’t think either of us knew what marriage meant. Everyone was getting married then. My friends—they all swept up the first husband they could get, regardless of if they really loved them. I didna want to rush us because of the war. I was so selfish.”

He watched her, her profile lit by the light of a nearby lantern. She shivered, and Ian regretted taking off his jacket.

“I was selfish, too,” he said. “Ye werena ready. I knew it, but I was scared. And I wanted to know ye’d be at home for me.” Some hair had fallen from her chignon and he reached out to touch it gently, satisfied that it  _had_  grown long. “Do ye have a pin?”

Surprised flickered across her face before she bent to the small clutch at her side, popping it open. Wordlessly, she handed a pin to him. With a gentle touch, he pinned the loose hair into the bun. She was stock still, and he hardly dared to breathe. Her hair was silky and thick, just as he had remembered it.

“I was at home for ye, Ian.”

He frowned at her. “But ye weren’t. You married someone else.”

“Is that why ye left?” She turned to him, her eyes shining in the lights.

“Yes.” His eyes caught on the reflections made by her necklace, shifting ever so slightly as she breathed. “I couldn’t run into Mrs. Oliver Grant at the grocery store.”

“Ian,” she said, her voice gentle. She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

He covered her hand with his and squeezed. “I’m sorry for leavin’, too.”

They swayed towards each other, each longing for more touch, both afraid to give and receive it. A moment passed between them, the world falling away, fading to just the two of them. He’d loved her once. He still did.

“Jenny?”

“Yes?”

“May I kiss you?”

She gave him a crooked smile, her blue eyes smug. It was a look that sent him back in time nearly ten years. “No,” she said. “Ye have to dance wi’ me, first.”  


End file.
